Today’s Spotlight: #Review of THE SEX EDUCATION OF M.E. by LB Dunbar

This was such an enjoyable book. Nothing like I’ve read so far. Most of the romance genre is filled with first time love for the twenty somethings as they find their paths in life.

The Sex Education of M.E. was so fresh and new to me. This story follows Mary Elizabeth Peters (by the way, I thought it was awesome that the character’s name was the name I was confirmed with while in my teens) as she makes the decision to rejoin the dating world. She has two teenage daughters and was married for 20 years. As a not-too-recent widow, she’s reached a point where she needs to focus on scratching that “itch”.

With a loving and gentle but supportive shove by her best friend, she begins to open herself up to possibilities. See what it’s like in the world of f*ck buddies or friends with benefits. During a block party with her neighbors and friends she meets a sexy and tattooed man that makes all her lady bits quiver. He offers to be her Über and take her for a “ride” any time she’d like. Well that’s an offer any woman in her right mind wouldn’t refuse. But Emme finds it difficult to take that first step.

This was a great story about re-discovering yourself. What do we do after a divorce or death? Some of us spend so many years with one person, how do you get back on that horse again? How different is the dating world since we last dipped our toes in that pool? What’s the proper etiquette for one night stands? How do you juggle a new social life with school activities and children’ schedules? That is what Emme is faced with. Learning to find herself again and find the happiness that evaded her for so long and being surprised at what falls into your path when you open yourself up to new things.

This is the perfect story for the thirty-somethings or forty-somethings or, hell, anyone that has come out of a long relationship and knows what it’s like (or just curious) to start over.

Bravo, LB Dunbar, for broaching a subject that can touch so many in a way that was purely entertaining with the story line and characters that are just as awkward and vulnerable and self-conscious as the rest of us. 🙂

ABOUT THE BOOKI’m forty, flabby, and frustrated. Don’t get me wrong, I have a good home, a decent job, and great children. I had a loving marriage for twenty years where we had our ups and downs. It wasn’t perfect; but it wasn’t awful. Then he died.

After the grief took its course, and the reality of my life set in, I grew frustrated. It wasn’t the bills or the struggle to keep my interest in my work. It was life without a man – the only man I’d been with for twenty years. And before you go all feminist on me, it isn’t that I can’t be an independent woman, but there are certain areas where a man is necessary.

You need a fuck buddy, my friend said.I didn’t even know what that meant.Is it friends with benefits?, I asked.Better, you don’t even have to be friends, she offered.

Boy, did I need an education in the modern workings of dating, and sex.

A coming-of-an-older-age novel.Something new from L.B. Dunbar — a stand alone!